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When will new thinking arrive?

As CNN chief jumps ship to save it, others seem happy to go down with it

CNN President Jim Walton announced his resignation last week, saying the network that is tanking in the ratings “needs new thinking.”

But viewers got a sour taste of the old (and still current) thinking Sunday, when the network used audio from a song called Stupid Girls to introduce a segment on Sarah Palin.

The lyric “stupid girls” is heard a full three times before anchor Randi Kaye starts talking about Sarah Palin. In fact, the camera has to pan from Kaye’s far right all the way across the studio to her far left before the producer is satisfied that “stupid girls” has been heard enough. That’s an awful long way to go to “establish a shot.”

And “shot” is the appropriate word.

Just another in a long line of liberal insults hurled at conservatives in the liberal media. Last fall, the Jimmy Fallon show introduced conservative presidential candidate Michele Bachmann with a vulgar song called Lyin’ A-- B----, for which the operative lyric is “You’re nothing but a little lyin’ a-- b-----.”

This is how conservative women at the highest levels of our national politics are treated in this country.

The network claimed to be sorry and pretended that the musical insult to Gov. Palin was an accident.

“The music selection was a poor choice and was not intended to be linked to any news story,” CNN said in a statement. “We regret any perception that they were planned together.”

Right. It’s just a “perception.”

What a bald-faced lie. From the “most trusted name in news.”

We’re particularly sorry that CNN, which invented cable news, has stooped this low. But it’s not the first insult.

Fact is, if CNN cared to know why it is plummeting in the ratings – now in third place in cable news and plunging like an Acme anvil – it could just ask any conservative.

The anchors, reporters, commentators and guests on CNN don’t just espouse chronically liberal views. They constantly belittle and toss verbal grenades at anyone who’s not left of center.

Believe what you want. Espouse what you like. But when you consistently choose, and often go out of your way, to deride the heartfelt views of a large plurality of Americans, your business model is going to suffer. Twice as many Americans identify themselves as conservative than liberal.

The educated folks at CNN know this. And they not only still choose to disparage that large audience, but as the Palin incident shows, they also go out of their way to insult people that that audience looks up to.

They like to pretend it’s all just a perception or an accident. And then they join their far-left friends at the water cooler and giggle about what a great joke it was that they played on Sarah Palin, et al. There are hardly ever any suspensions, firings or other repercussions.

Except maybe in the ratings and president’s office.

Indeed, ratings out this week show that CNN was down 20 percent in viewers last month from a year ago.

Jim Walton’s resignation doesn’t take effect until the end of the year. Will that be soon enough for some “new thinking”?